What Is Real And
What Is Unreal?

IV

Today I can say with total conviction that I am certain of who I am,
and who I am not. I can speak to you freely about my rape experience,
because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in reality it never happened.
It has no charge, no juice, no power over me. But first I had to look
at it and take full personal responsibility for all of it, without guilt
or self-condemnation or judgment, holding Spirit's hand and asking to
be shown. When I am willing to fully expose to myself my willingness to
hurt myself in order to keep my belief in separation alive, and see that
I no longer want that, the truth reveals itself and shows me that none
of what I think has happened was real. In truth, there could never be
anything but God and God's love.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not advocating denial of your negative
experiences. Denial gives energy to the darkest fears by attempting to
hide them and put them out of the consciousness. Exposing our fears or
negative qualities undoes them and reveals them as the nothing that they
have always been.

I am deeply grateful for the classroom that this episode has become for
me. What have I learned? That I am the indestructible Atma. That what
is real cannot be threatened, and what is not real does not exist. That
only God's will is real. And whatever I experience will be what I choose.
As long as my underlying purpose is to maintain my separate identity it
will not be real and I will not be real. All suffering is self-inflicted,
and is over when I no longer see any value in it. Once I see no value
in my separation thoughts they will simply fade away. Then my will is
one with God's will and I experience only the constant extension of love
and joy. That is awakening from the dream of death.

The experience I recounted turned out to be a great gift and blessing
to me, for it impelled me to change my mind. But this was an extreme example,
certainly not one you or anyone has to undergo. You can change your mind
right now. Use my experience, or any other extreme example such as Jesus'
crucifixion and resurrection to motivate you to change your consciousness
and see that separation, and this world of duality and death that you
made to maintain your separation consciousness, is no longer what you
want. You don't need to use pain to wake up. It can certainly serve as
one of the ways. But why not wake up laughing? Whatever you do, WAKE UP!
The time is now! Don't put it off. Choose now to die to your old way of
thinking in separation and body-consciousness and be reborn in God-consciousness.
Turn your life and will over to God, and ask for help. There is no way
you can manage it by yourself.

Baba says the spiritual path is easy. It requires no effort at all. Making
what is unreal and nonexistent real requires tremendous effort. On the
underlying basis of the unchanging eternal peace and serenity of God's
love, I can choose to manufacture an incident of such magnitude and intensity
as this one just recounted, in order to keep an insane belief system intact
and make it real for me. But how much easier it is to simply allow what
is real to be real, and to abide in perfect peace, love and light, and
be who you naturally are and always have been, one with God! You don't
have to do anything to make the truth real. Just let yourself be who you
truly are. You cannot fail. You are perfect and whole as God created you.
Be happy!